Forthcoming books to look forward to from Transworld Publishers

The eight-year-old boy had vanished from the car and - as if by slick, sick magic - had been replaced by a note on the steering wheel...'You don't love him'...At the height of summer a dark shadow falls across Exmoor. Children are being stolen from cars. Only a terse note - a brutal accusation, marks each disappearance. There are no explanations, no ransom demands ...and no hope. Policeman Jonas Holly faces a precarious journey into the warped mind of the kidnapper if he's to stand any chance of catching him. But - still reeling from a personal tragedy - is Jonas really up to the task? Because there's at least one person on Exmoor who thinks that, when it comes to being the first line of defence, Jonas Holly may be the last man to trust... Finders Keepers is by the CWA Gold Dagger winner Belinda Bauer and is due to be published in January 2012.

Imagine the unimaginable – You’re happily married, but your husband dies unexpectedly, and at his funeral you are confronted by a woman who says, ‘I’m Lottie, I’ve shared a home with your husband for the last twenty years. This is our son.’ The Wife’s Dossier is a psychological thriller focusing on a woman who learns at her husband’s funeral that he had another family. The betrayed wife’s quest is to get to the bottom of her late husband’s double life and mysterious death and, in doing so learns who and what she really is. The Wife’s Dossier is by Tamar Cohen and is due to be published in June 2012.

Siege is by Simon Kernick and is due to be published in January 2012. London is under attack. People are dead. Many more lives hang in the balance as a group of highly trained gunmen storm the historic Lanchester Hotel on Park Lane. The gunmen have given the government just five hours to meet their demands before they blow up the building. Shots ring out. Some guests panic. Others text their loved ones. Still more try to escape. All are united by one thing: fear for their lives. All - except one man who has information so dangerous that it must be kept safe - at any price. Darkness falls. The gunmen become increasingly violent. One question is in everybody's minds. Will they survive the night?

A critically acclaimed thriller spanning twenty-five years, centred around the still unsolved murder of Prime Minister Olof Palme in 1986. Stockholm 1975: Six young people take the entire staff of the West German embassy hostage, demanding that the Baader-Meinhof members being held as prisoners in West Germany be released immediately. The long siege ends with the deaths of two hostages and the wounding of several others, including the captors. 1989: When a Swedish civil servant is murdered, the two leading detectives on the case, Anna Holt and Bo Jarnebring, find their investigation hastily shelved by an incompetent and corrupt senior investigator. 1999. Lars Johansson, having just joined the Swedish Security Police, decides to tie up a few loose ends left behind by his predecessor: specifically, two files on Swedes who had allegedly collaborated on the 1975 takeover of the West German embassy, one of whom turned out to be the murder victim in 1989. Johansson reopens the investigation and, with help from detectives Jarnebring and Holt, follows the leads - right up to the doorstep of Sweden's newly minted minister of justice. Another Time, Another Life is by Leif G W Persson and is due to be published in March 2012.

The Contract is by David Levien and is due to be published in January 2012. The Company: Troubled former cop Frank Behr is working for an exclusive Indianapolis investigation company, when he finds himself on a protection detail for Bernard "Bernie Cool" Kolodnik. The Client: Bernard "Bernie Cool" Kolodnik is a hard driving business mogul on the verge of making a move into big-time politics. The Corrupt: An attempt on Kolodnik's life is quickly buried by the police. But Behr wants the truth, and his hunt will put him a collision course with a dangerous sociopath... Frank Behr, working for a high-end investigation company, is tasked with protecting businessman, Bernard Kolodnik, who is on the precipice of making the move into politics. And when an attempt is made on the prominent client’s life, Behr manages to repel the attackers and get himself and Kolodnik to safety. Behr returns to work the following day, greeted by a round of applause from his co-workers, and is soon placed on a new case concerning a string of robberies. But while it seems everyone has moved on from the attempted shooting, the circumstances of the failed Kolodnik hit nag Behr and he soon discovers his probing and is urged by his superiors to let it go as well. But this only fires his suspicions further. Soon Behr discovers a link between his company and massive corruption where politics, law enforcement, and a state work contract worth hundreds of millions of dollars intersect. Embroiled in a perilous situation, Behr must rely on his guts, his skill and the help of an unlikely new friend if he is to live to see the birth of his child.

The Rings of Olympus is by James Becker and is due to be published in June 2012. Chris Bronson is back in this edge-of-your seat thriller involving a secret Nazi WW2 weapon and a plot against the 2012 London Olympics. Berlin, 1936: Hitler is determined to hold the best Olympic Games the world has ever seen. German athletes have trained full-time to ensure that ‘Aryans’ take all the top honours. Unfortunately, the African-American Jesse Owens spoils their plan, winning four gold medals. In a secret Nazi underground laboratory, scientists are at work on a devastating revenge. London, 2012: Chris Bronson is working undercover for the Metropolitan Police, infiltrating a group of anarchists who have been smashing windows, sabotaging machinery and even digging tunnels under some of the Olympic sites in attempts to disrupt the Games. But he uncovers a plot that hints at a much more sinister plan and will lead him on a chase into the dark corners of German’s Nazi past.

The Devil’s Looking-Glass is by Mark Chadbourn and is the third in the swashbuckling supernatural adventure featuring Elizabethan England’s answer to James Bond, the dashing swordsman and spy, Will Swyfte. 1593: The dreaded alchemist, black magician and spy Dr John Dee is missing...Terror sweeps through the court of Queen Elizabeth, for in Dee's possession is an obsidian mirror, a mysterious object of great power which legend says could set the world afire. And so the call goes out to celebrated swordsman, adventurer and rake Will Swyfte - find Dee and his feared looking glass and return them to London before disaster strikes. But when Will discovers the mirror may help him solve the mystery that has haunted him for years - the fate of his lost love, Jenny - the stakes become acutely personal. With a frozen London under siege by supernatural powers, the sands of time are running out. Will is left with no choice but to pursue the alchemist to the devil-haunted lands of the New World - in the very shadow of the terrifying fortress home of England's hidden enemy, the Unseelie Court. Surrounded by an army of these unearthly fiends, with only his sword and a few brave friends at his back, the realm's greatest spy must be prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice - or see all he loves destroyed.

They are known as the Legion of the Damned...Throughout the Roman Army, the XIIth Legion is notorious for its ill fortune. It faces the harshest of postings, the toughest of campaigns, the most vicious of opponents. For one young man, Demalion of Macedon, joining it will be a baptism of fire. And yet, amid all of the violence and savagery of his life as a legionary, he realises he has discovered a vocation - as a soldier and a leader of men. He has come to love the Twelth and all the bloody-minded, dark-hearted soldiers he calls his brothers. But just when he has found a place in the world, all that he cares about is ripped from him when, during the brutal Judaean campaign, the Hebrew army inflict a catastrophic defeat upon the legion - not only decimating their ranks, but taking away their soul - the eagle. There is one final chance to save the legion's honour - to steal back the eagle. To do that, Demalion and his legionnaries must go undercover into the city of Jerusalem, into the very heart of their enemy, where discovery will mean the worst of deaths, if they are to recover their pride. And that, in itself, is a task worthy only of heroes. Rome: The Eagle of the Twelfth is by M C Scott and is due to be published in May 2012.

Vanished is by Liza Marklund and is due to be published in February 2012. People can’t just disappear… or can they? Five murders in one week, a smuggling operation gone wrong, and a crime reporter desperate to find the truth…. At a derelict port in Stockholm, a young woman is on the run from a deranged gunman. The following morning, two brutally murdered men are found by a security guard patrolling the area. Meanwhile, Annika Bengtzon of the Evening Post is approached by a woman claiming to have founded an organisation able to erase people’s pasts. She says it can give vulnerable individuals a new identity and help to rebuild their lives. But as Annika investigates her claims, more bodies turn up and she finds herself getting dangerously close to the truth – that all is not as it seems…..

Fatal Frost is by James Henry and is due to be published in May 2012. May 1982. Britain celebrates the sinking of the Belgrano, Jimmy Savile has the run of the airwaves and Denton Police Division welcomes its first black policeman, DC Waters – recently relocated from Bethnal Green. While the force is busy dealing with a spate of local burglaries, the body of fifteen-year-old Samantha Evans is discovered in woodland next to the nearby railway track. The a fifteen-year-old boy is found dead on Denton’s golf course, his organs removed. Detective Sergeant Jack Frost is sent to investigate – a welcome distraction from troubles at home. And when the murdered boy’s sister goes missing. Frost and Waters must work together to find her before it’s too late.

“We must prise opinion from fact, belief from supposition and guesswork from whatever evidence must exist...” It is surely a simple case of hysteria. Four young women allegedly witness a terrifying apparition while walking in the woods. Has the devil really revealed himself to them? Are they genuine victims of demonic possession? Or, as most suspect, is their purpose in claiming all of this considerably more prosaic? The eyes of the country turn to a small Nottinghamshire town, where an inquiry is to be held. Everyone there is living through hard, uncertain times. The king is recently dead. It is a new century - a new world looking to the future. But here, in the ancient heart of England, an old beast stirs...Four men must examine the substance of the girls' tales and decide their fate: a minister, a doctor, a magistrate, and Merritt, an investigator - a seemingly perfect blend of the rational, the sacred and the judicial. And yet, as the feverish excitement all around them grows ever more widespread and infectious, there is both doubt and conflict among the members of this panel. The "Devil's Beat" explores the unforeseeable and unstoppable outcome of this inquiry - an alarming and unsettling time during which the whole of that small world seems in turmoil as one after another hitherto dependable natural checks and balances, beliefs and superstitions are challenged and then lost. Devil’s Beat is by Robert Edric and is due to be published in March 2012.

The Queen’s Secret is by Victoria Lamb is due to be published in March 2012. It's July 1575: Elizabeth I, Queen of England, arrives at Kenilworth Castle amid pomp, fanfare and a wealth of lavish festivities, laid on by the Earl of Leicester. The hopeful Earl knows this is his very last chance to persuade the Queen to marry him. But despite his attachment to the Queen and his driving ambition to be her King, Leicester is unable to resist the seductive wiles of Lettice, wife of the Earl of Essex. And soon whispers of their relationship start spreading through the court. Enraged by the adulterous lovers growing intimacy, Elizabeth employs Lucy Morgan, a young black singer and court entertainer, to spy on the couple. But Lucy, who was raised by a spy in London, uncovers far more than she bargains for. For someone at Kenilworth that summer is plotting to kill the queen. No longer able to tell friend from foe, it is soon not only the queen who is in mortal danger - but Lucy herself.

Not all scars are visible. Jonathan Kellaway needs no reminding of that on the verge of his retirement from China clay conglomerate Intercontinental Kaolins. The company has left its mark in pits and spoil heaps around the world. But it has also left a no less enduring mark on some of those that have worked for it. Kellaway included. Its past, as well as its future, is a treacherous place. So Kellaway is surprised when IK’s founder and former chairman Greville Lashley, sets him a final task before he quits. The academic hired by the board to write the company’s history has discovered a gap covering several years in the records of the small Cornish china clay outfit Lashley started with and where Kellaway also began his career. He is despatched to Cornwall to learn what has become of the missing documents. But the search is a voyage into dangerous waters. A dead friend, a lost lover and a clutch of mysteries from Kellaway’s youth in Cornwall and Italy in the late 1960s come back to haunt him – and to tempt him with the hope that he may at last learn the truth about the tragedies and misfortunes that blighted those years. It is a truth that has claimed several victims before. If he pursues it hard and long enough, he may only add himself to the list. But pursue it he must. Because the truth, he belatedly realizes, is the secret that has consumed his life. This time – this last time – he will not stop. Until he has found it. Fault Line is by Robert Goddard and is due to be published in March 2012.

Some people help the less fortunate. Others kill them. Evil has many guises. Jack Taylor has encountered most of them but nothing before has ever truly terrified him until a group called Headstone rears its ugly head. An elderly priest is viciously beaten until nearly dead. A special needs boy is brutally attacked. A series of seemingly random, insane, violent events even has the Guards shaken. Most would see a headstone as a marker of the dead, but this coterie of evil intends to act as a death knell to every aspect of Jack’s life as an act appalling violence alerts him to the horror enveloping Galway. Accepting the power of Headstone, Jack realizes that in order to fight back he must relinquish the remaining shreds of what has made him human – knowledge that may have come too late to prevent an act of such ferocious evil that the whole country would be changed forever - and in the worst possible way. With awful clarity, Jack knows that not only might he be powerless to stop it but that he may not even have the grit needed to even face it. Headstone is by Ken Bruen and is due to be published in April 2012.

A man wakes up naked and cold, half-drowned on an abandoned beach. The only sign of life for miles is an empty BMW. Inside the expensive car he finds clothes that fit perfectly, shoes for his tattered feet, a Rolex, and a bank envelope stuffed with cash and an auto registration in the name of Daniel Hayes, resident of Malibu, California. None of it is familiar. What is he doing here? How did he get into the ocean? Is he Daniel Hayes, and if so, why doesn't he remember? While he searches for answers, the world searches for him-beginning with the police that kick in the door of his dingy motel, with guns drawn. Lost, alone, and on the run, the man who might be Daniel Hayes flees into the night. All he remembers is a woman's face, so he sets off for the only place he might find her. The fantasy of her becomes his home, his world, his hope. And maybe, just maybe, the way back to himself. But that raises the most chilling question of all: What will he find when he gets there? The Two Deaths of Daniel Hayes is by Marcus Sakey and is due to be published in July 2012.

The Dark Angel is by Mari Jungstedt and is due to be published in March 2012. Inspector Anders Knutas is back in the sixth instalment of Mari Jungstedt's dark and compelling series of crime novels, set on the island of Gotland. This crime adventure builds on the already strong series, which combines chilling atmosphere, razor sharp plot twists and a brilliant cast of subtly crafted characters. In "The Dark Angel", Jungstedt's writing is as thrilling and poignant as ever, ensuring that Knutas will continue to have the reader gripped from start to finish. After the glamorous party planner Viktor Algard is found murdered at one of his own glitzy events, Inspector Knutas has several leads to follow. But his investigation uncovers a terrifying trail of abuse which forces Knutas to confront his own demons, and has devastating consequences for TV journalist Johan Berg and his new wife, Emma.

When a Cambridge student dramatically attempts to take her own life, DI Mark Joesbury realizes that the university has developed an unhealthy record of young people committing suicide in extraordinary ways. Against huge personal misgivings, Joesbury sends young policewoman DC Lacey Flint to Cambridge, with a brief to work under-cover, posing as a depression-prone, vulnerable student. Psychiatrist Evi Oliver is the only person in Cambridge who knows who Lacey really is - or so they both hope. But as the two women dig deeper into the darker side of university life, they discover a terrifying trend ...And when Lacey starts experiencing the same disturbing nightmares reported by the dead girls, she knows that she is next. Dead Scared is by S J Bolton is due to be published in April 2012.

The Summer of Dead Toys is by Antonio Hill and is due to be published in May 2012. Inspector Salgado is known for his violent moments. He has a murky emotional past and a runaway wife. So he is moved off his current case to investigate the story behind a young boy’s fall to his death from a balcony in one of Barcelona’s uptown areas. Salgado digs deeper, poking at the seedy underbelly of Spain’s most popular city, to unearth a case of human trafficking and voodoo. But Hector’s fierce, complex personality (with his passion for cinema) and a seemingly unresolvable case are set to implode under Barcelona’s hot sun.

I am Pilgrim is the debut novel by Terry Hayes and is due to be published in June 2012. When your past comes calling , its time to disappear…. Pilgrim was the codename for a world class and legendary secret agent. The adopted son of a wealthy New York family, he was once head of a secret internal affairs force for US intelligence and held the title ‘Rider of the Blue’. He wrote the definitive book on forensic investigation before disappearing into an anonymous retirement taking the secrets of the Rider of the Blue with him. A Murder in New York: the body of a woman is found face down in a bath of acid, her features have been ripped from her face, her teeth are missing, her fingerprints gone. The rooms have been sprayed with DNA eradicating spray. Someone has seemingly committed the perfect crime using the techniques outlined in Pilgrim’s book. A terrorist known only as The Arab, was radicalised when, as a young boy, he witnessed the beheading of his father in a public square in Saudi Arabia. He has dedicated his life to destroying the special relationship between the Kingdom and the United States. He learnt his trade fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan, and now from hiding in Germany plots a terrible act of mass murder. When NYPD detective Ben Bradley tracks down Pilgrim, neither man can imagine the terrifying journey they are about to begin, as what begins as an unusual and challenging murder investigation leads them into a direct collision with the dark forces of jihadist terrorism.

The Last Caesar is the debut historical novel by Henry Venmore-Rowland telling the story of the brutal and bloody power struggle that followed the suicide of Nero – a period in Roman history that came to be called ‘The Year of the Four Emperors’…. AD68: The tyrant emperor Nero has no son and no heir. Suddenly there’s the very real possibility that Rome might become a Republic once more. But the ambitions of a few are about to bring corruption, chaos and untold bloodshed to the many. Among them is a hero of the campaign against Boudicca, Aulus Caecina Severus. Caught up in a conspiracy against to overthrow Caesar’s dynasty, he commits treason, raises a rebellion, faces torture and intrigue – all supposedly for the good of Rome. The boundary between the good of Rome and self preservation is far from clear, and keeping to the dangerous path he’s chosen requires all Severus’ skills as a cunning soldier and increasingly deft politician. And so Severus looks back on the dark and dangerous time history knows as the Year of the Four Emperors, and the part he played - for good or ill – in plunging the mighty Roman empire into anarchy and civil war …. The Last Caesar is due to be published in June 2012.